


The Beginning of The End

by TheStayPuftMarshmallowMan



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 'The' prophecy, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt, Flashbacks, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Honestly I just wanted to cry but I couldn't find a fic like this, James Potter & Lily Evans Potter Die, Prophecy, Sirius Black & James Potter Friendship, Sirius finding the Potters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 06:39:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29880567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheStayPuftMarshmallowMan/pseuds/TheStayPuftMarshmallowMan
Summary: He turns around and from this angle, it almost looks like James is smiling. He can almost trick himself into thinking that James is telling himself that it’s okay and he can, if he tries hard enough, almost hear his voice. It’s not real.It's the 31st of October, 1981. Sirius Black arrives in Godric's Hollow.
Relationships: Sirius Black & James Potter, Sirius Black & Lily Evans Potter
Kudos: 2





	The Beginning of The End

_“Intel said You-Know-Who is on the move.”_

Sirius couldn’t help but stumble as he appears on the corner of the street. It’s dark and miserable, but all too quiet. In the distance, he can see a faint discolouration against the almost pitch-black sky.

_“Rumours that he’s heading to Godric’s Hollow.”_

Barely giving himself time to adjust from the shoddy apparition (James would be taking the piss out of him if he had seen that - who almost trips after 17?), Sirius starts sprinting towards the end of the street. He thinks he sees the pale face of Bathilda Bagshot peering out of her front window at him as he skids to a halt in front of the house.

_“Surely not...Sirius would never betray his family like that!”_

He stares up at the smoking building, grey eyes blank in despair. The left side of the upper floor is in ruins, roof and walls blown outwards with what must have been incredible force. Almost as though for dramatic effect, the skies open and rain starts falling around him, soaking his clothes and hair, sticking to him as this memory would forever.

With a shaking hand, he pushes the unlatched gate ajar and steps into Lily’s carefully tended front garden. There’s rubble strewn across the petunias and he can hear her irritated tone in his ear, because those were just about as stubborn as her sister and took her months to grow, dammit.

The door is in a similar state to the gate and with a thundering heartbeat he reaches out to it. A part of him refuses to believe what he’s seeing, but there’s a screaming in his head that won’t stop. The rain, loud and heavy though it must be, makes no sound to him. All he can hear is his pulse thrumming in his ears, his ragged breath vibrating in his chest, the ominous creak of the door as he pushes it slowly inwards.

Someone has been here, he notices immediately. There’s a bloody shoe print heading back out into the garden. It’s not the Dark Lord, no, he has an aversion to shoes. Sirius stares unseeingly at the print for a moment before moving past it - it is for someone else to waste time over.

He moves further into the house and spares a moment to pick up a photo from the counter in the hallway - it’s of two men, grinning goofily at the camera. One is wrestling with the other, trying to steal the pair of glasses that the shorter is holding away from him. In a moment of weakness, Sirius strokes a trembling finger down the moving photograph, before putting it back on the side.

_“Not the Potters, please not them...”_

He turns the corner and all his strength leaves him. There, sprawled across the stairs, lies James Potter.

_“Hi! I’m James Potter! Mum said not to talk to you because we’re supposed to be enemies but I don’t like being told what to do. Want to be friends instead?”_

_“Oi, Black, come check this out! You’ll not believe what I’ve found!”_

_“Mate...you know you’re not what that cunt says you are, right? First Black in Gryffindor, pretty impressive if you ask me.”_

_“Is it getting worse? You’re always welcome at mine if you want.”_

_“Moony reckons you’re fine, that you want to be alone...I’m not so sure. I’m here for you, no matter what. You’re my brother.”_

_“You owe me 50 galleons Padfoot! Don’t think I’ve forgotten our first-year bet, you little fucker!”_

_“Be my best man?”_

_“Lily’s pregnant...and I don’t know what to do. I’m not cut out to be a dad, I know fuck all about kids...”_

_“His name is Harry! We’d like you to be his godfather. Lily says she can think of no one better, however dubious she is of your guardianship skills._ ”

_“Be our secret-keeper?”_

_“There’s no one I trust more than you, Sirius. If you think You-Know-Who is after you then maybe we should change the keeper to Peter..”_

_“I love you.”_

Sirius falls to the ground, one hand trailing uselessly down the wall. Uncaring of how pathetic he’s sure he looks, he crawls towards the body (corpse, empty shell) of his best friend, his brother in all but blood.

James isn’t yet stiff but he is cold in death. His head is bleeding, but not from any altercation - he hit his head on the stairs as he fell, strings cut. Sirius lets out a choked noise from somewhere in his throat, fingers reaching out to James’ face. His skin is cool to the touch, room temperature and that’s wrong on so many levels because James has always run hot, always - gathering his friends in a group hug much to their dismay, never wearing appropriate layers in winter because he ‘doesn’t get cold’, always the furthest from the fireplace because he starts sweating so easily in the heat. Sirius’ fingers catch on the sticky blood and he rips his hand away, not wanting to smear blood over his friend’s (brother’s, soulmate’s) body in some macabre form of finger painting.

He crouches over James’ body for an indeterminate amount of time, his wet hair dripping onto his still face (or are those tears? Sirius cannot tell). Eventually he moves, carefully stroking his thumb under James’ eyes, taking a long hard look at his empty hazel irises, trying to commit their exact shade to memory. It’s useless, of course, James’ eyes now are lifeless and in their dullness, they may as well be colourless. He gently closes his friend’s eyes, straightens those awful (truly awful, who let James pick those out) red glasses over his slightly crooked nose (one too many bludgers to the face if one were to ask the man himself, although Lily would have a different story), and rests his hand on his cheek for a moment more before continuing his journey.

A part of him will lie in this house forever, Sirius thinks as he mechanically climbs the stairs. He’s lost everything dear to him in one fell swoop. He’s not an idiot - he knows that he’s the primary and only suspect in this betrayal because in their fear (and maybe arrogance too) no one else knew of Peter’s involvement, not even Moony. Sirius has lost his family, the trust of his friends, and his own spirit in the span of less than two hours.

He wills himself not to cry, remembering that he’d had lunch in this very house not even a day ago.

The nursery door is missing, blown off its hinges, and, to his utter shock, there lies the Dark Lord. He’s face down on the carpet and Sirius feels a bubbling of immense rage well up inside him before it’s extinguished in despair. Clearly the murderer is dead. There’s no point in anger, not when hope is gone. Still, he kicks the body of his enemy over, taking a look at the pale, gaunt face of Lord Voldemort, his red eyes oddly dark, almost brown in colour without the accompanying calculating glow. He’s hairless (and that’s a new development) but Sirius truly doesn’t care about the Dark Lord’s sense of style, no. He’s more interested in the blackened mark in the centre of his chest. Presumably the cause of his unfortunate demise.

Beyond him lies Lily. Sirius is numb by this point so is able to remain standing on seeing her figure. She’s collapsed on the floor beside the crib and unlike James her death doesn’t appear painless. The tiny voice within him is chanting 'not lily not lily not lily please, why them why them why them' incessantly and Sirius squashes it further down within him, stepping over the Dark Lord without a second glance.

He gets to his knees beside her and tucks a strand of dark auburn red hair behind her ear, wishing he could erase the grimace from her features. Lily Evans was beautiful, her smile could enchant even the most hard-hearted of people - the expression of pain painted across her face wasn’t one that belonged on her features.

“You were always the best of us, Lilykins,” Sirius whispers hoarsely, the sound of his own voice startling him for a moment. His dirty hand taunts him from where it rests against her hair and he rips it away. He’s not worthy to be here, touching either of them, when he’s the one who perpetrated their deaths.

A sniffle interrupts his miserable thoughts. He looks up and there’s Harry, his darling baby Harry, the poor boy's forehead sliced open and dripping blood onto the clean green sheets of his bed.

“Oh Harry,” Sirius croaks, reaching out slowly. Harry eyes his hand warily before his wide green eyes show recognition. Sirius supposes he looks somewhat unlike himself at the moment.

“Unky Pa-foo,” Harry whimpers, grabbing onto his index finger tightly. Sirius swallows and moves to block Lily’s body from Harry’s line of sight. He hopes Harry is too young to remember this, too young to even have weird nightmares he doesn’t fully understand.

“Yeah, it’s Uncle Padfoot,” he says, moving one hand to the baby’s head and carding his fingers through the thick hair there. “I’ve come to take you on a holiday, how does that sound?”

“Mama? Papa?”

“...not this time.”

“Unky Moony?”

“He’s waiting for us, where we’re going,” Sirius lies, carefully picking Harry up, and cradling him against his chest. The truth is that Sirius hasn’t got a clue where Remus is right now. He’s not even sure if Remus knows what’s happened.

“Come on then, Harry,” Sirius says, trying to inject some cheer into his voice if only to comfort the still sniffling child.

“Hur’s,” Harry mutters, tears welling up in his eyes. Sirius looks at the large cut, but his healing abilities are limited and he doesn’t want to fuck it up anymore (aside from being the reason Harry is hurt in the first place).

“I know, buddy, we’ll get that fixed up for you in no time,” Sirius says, lying through his teeth again. He suddenly feels an intense urge not to be here anymore, he wants to be as far as possible from this place with its memories and the ghosts of happiness and the stench of death. He almost runs from the nursery, not even taking the time for a second look at the body of his sister-in-law and the man responsible for the deaths of so many.

He thunders down the stairs, stopping just so he doesn’t step on James’ body (he can just imagine the rant he’d get about that, something about sacrilege and respect) and as he reaches the front door he paused. He turns around and from this angle, it almost looks like James is smiling. He can almost trick himself into thinking that James is telling himself that it’s okay and he can, if he tries hard enough, almost hear his voice. It’s not real.

Sirius rips open the front door and runs straight into Rubeus Hagrid.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there...this is my grand return to the land of fanfiction and honestly I got this out in about an hour so if it's no good then I apologise.
> 
> At the risk of sounding slightly psychopathic, I hope this hurt you. 
> 
> I also hope that there was nothing triggering, but if so and I didn't add appropriate trigger warnings, please let me know so that I can amend my tags. Death is quite a sensitive topic, after all.
> 
> Anyway, have this! It's not my usual style, and it's my first time writing for HP (even though I fucking love it so much), but I did have a lot of fun (⁀ᗢ⁀)
> 
> ~Marshy


End file.
